Marketers fail to link strategy with business goals
Marketers risk losing influence in the boardroom after a report found that the overwhelming majority are failing to properly link marketing with overall business strategy.
The study, by Accenture and The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), reveals that only 15% of marketers fully integrate what marketing does with broader business strategy.
A further 8% say there is a significant disconnection between the two.
CIM head of insights Thomas Brown says the lack of alignment offers marketers an opportunity.
“Marketers are going to have to be much more robust in terms of how they define propositions,” he says. “That is a massive opportunity for a leader to say ’what is marketing here for and how does it contribute to the overall goals of the organisation’.”
Accenture partner Joanna Levesque, who co-wrote the report with Brown, says the figures are “horrifying”, but that closer alignment is possible.
A central marketing function in an international business will help link strategy, says Levesque. She says: “A trend we see with clients is that they have some kind of centre of excellence or best practise approach. Local markets are then in charge of execution.”
The report also recommends that marketing be responsible for the skills that teams need, rather than devolving this to the human resources function, for example.
The Future for Marketing Capability questioned 130 senior global marketers and spoke in-depth to 26 chief executives and chief marketing officers.
See the feature from this week’s issue
